Tanja Porja* and Margarita Ifti
The impact of climate changes has already been observed in Albania facing its economy to many damages and to quantify the future climate-related risks, a better knowledge of the extreme weather phenomena becomes essential. A significant change has been observed in the frequency and severity of heat wave events during the last decades and this study is focused on the long-term analysis of the local scale for this phenomenon. The analyses were performed for Tirana, the Albanian capital with the highest population (one third of the country’s population lives here) and also a very high importance as a good part of Albania’s industry is concentrated there. The last decades present an increase for the main indicators of the heat waves as a higher frequency and a longer duration of the wave. To improve the urban climate policies and to help the adaptation, a better knowledge of the extreme weather events is needed. For this reason, more research should be conducted regarding one of the most popular extreme weather, the heat wave phenomenon and in a wider urban area.
